Cumbernauld’s ‘plook’ faces demolition

Its leader, Jim Logue, will today unveil what he calls a “bold” shift away from shopping for the commercial and public hearts of eight towns, including Cumbernauld.

He will ask councillors next week to back a vision that would also see empty and under-used shops in Airdrie, Wishaw, Motherwell, Shotts, Kilsyth, Coatbridge and Bellshill swept away to make space for new homes, schools and other community assets.

Mr Logue’s drive reverses years of piecemeal and ineffective life support for ailing town centre retail drags – usually through investment in urban realm.

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A paper from his chief executive, Des Murray, sets out proposals to “reposition town centres as vibrant mixed-use centres”.

It sets out broad themes for new “town hubs” that would incorporate schools, leisure and other public services to be relocated from their current peripheral sites.

However, officials stress the exact shape of each new re-imagined town centre, including Cumbernauld, will be subject to further consultation, with bespoke solutions for each community.

Mr Logue said for too long councils had failed to think holistically, seeing issues like the locations of schools or leisure and culture centres as separate from economic development or town centre regeneration.

He said: “I don’t think town centres can be saved in their present form.

“You can’t bring back the old retail. That has gone. We have to think of a different approach to town centres and what is envisaged in the hubs is far more sustainable.

“We have to have a core medium-to-long-term plan. In the past we have not had that plan.

“I think this vision is bold and ambitious. Do you want us to continue doing what we are doing? Because if we do, it is tantamount to managing decline. You can see that in all the town centres in North Lanarkshire.”

Most of North Lanarkshire’s town centres are privately owned and officials will have to assemble land for their plans, including with multiple small and large retail landlords.

Officials are understood to be already taking to some property owners as they seek to contract the retail offering.

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They stress they are eager to keep iconic architecture, such as the former Orrs department store in Airdrie which is about to be turned in to council flats 13 years after it closed its doors.

However, the concrete heart of the Cumbernauld new town – voted twice as Scotland’s “plook on the plinth” or ugliest architectural feature – is not something they want to save.

Mr Murray openly refers to “getting rid of the plook of the plinth”, but he also stresses he is not trying to shut shops people are using now.

Asked what he would do with the site, he said: “It gets replaced with a town hub, with an advanced or different retail offering, with more housing of a higher standard.”

North Lanarkshire Council – like all others – is facing an ongoing squeeze on its revenues, one that has lasted since austerity was imposed after the 2008 financial crash.

However, the local authority, thanks to low debt and high growth, can access loans for capital investment, not least for its housing stock.

So it finds itself revenue poor but, potentially, capital rich.

This borrowing – as well as money from the City Region Deal it shares with the rest of West Central Scotland –will fund investments in schools, housing and infrastructure in to what Mr Murray’s report refers to as a “coherent overarching framework for place-based investment”.